Valheim has been one of the most successful games of 2021, and for many has reaffirmed the trust in early access games entirely. After just two weeks, the game had almost three million downloads, which was impressive considering it was just a five-person team at the time. Valheim was incredibly polished when it was released, but the developers still had more in store for the game, releasing their 2021 roadmap shortly after. But as of 2023, is Valheim a finished game? Is there a 2023 roadmap for Valheim?
Valheim Roadmap 2021
Valheim is far from being a finished game and has plenty more in store to offer players. The 2021 roadmap was a welcome surprise for an early access game, and so far we have seen almost everything on the list come out. The Mistlands update was the latest and brought a huge influx of content to the game. The size of the 2021 roadmap has meant there are still some things to be ticked off after two years.
Developers
Valheim is most likely to be fully released in 2025. This comment from the developers sheds some light on when the final release date will actually be:
“We don’t know. We’re currently working on our seventh biome, the Ashlands, and after that we have one more to complete (the Deep North) before we’ll consider the game to be version 1.0. It’s a pretty safe bet to say that Valheim will be in active development for at least another two years (counting from January 2023). Aside from the large biome updates, we also want to add smaller updates to fill out the game.”
Iron Gate studios began developing Valheim in 2017, and since its alpha release in 2021, the game has been waiting for a full release date. So according to the developers, Valheim is not a finished game.
On the official Valheim site, under the Development Blog, the Iron Gate Team has announced that the “next big biome update is going to be the Ashlands”. The Ashlands already exists in the game (venture far enough south and you will find some Ashlands). The biome is currently quite blank, and has nothing but Surtlings, Magmafish and Glowing Metal. Glowing Metal can be smelted to produced Flametal, which currently has no use.
So Iron Gate Studio is unsure exactly of when they’ll release the game, but we can be assured of at least two years of development. The Ashlands update is likely to come out this year, and we could even see development of the Deep North too.
But there were some other unfinished things on their 2021 roadmap, under their ‘If Odin wills it’ section. Are these still planned for release? Here are some of the updates we might be seeing in the near future.
Svartalfr Brigands
With a brigand being a roaming thief, the Svartalfr Brigands update suggests that bandits will be added to the game at some point. Svartalfr is a nod to Norse mythology and refers to dark elves. This suggests very strongly that we could see dark elves being added to the game, who perhaps raid the player’s base or patrol certain areas of the map.
Sandbox mode
Entering a sandbox mode can already be done, but using the console commands. It can be achieved by pressing F5, typing the phrase ‘imacheater’, then typing ‘debugmode’ and then hitting ‘b’. You will now be able to build with unlimited resources. Currently, no legitimate sandbox mode exists in the game.
Munin
Hugin serves as the game’s tutorial raven. In Norse mythology, Hugin and Munin (Old Norse for ‘thought’ and ‘memory’) serve to bring information to the god Odin. It’s unclear exactly what they have in mind for Munin, but perhaps it will be some extra way to communicate in the game, or an extension of the tutorial for the player. Munin can be seen after defeating Yagluth and also in the Mistlands, but currently has no other function.
So in the short and long term, Valheim is far from being finished, and we can expect updates to come this year. Iron Gate Studio is active on its Twitter account and News section of its website, and provides regular updates to the game’s development.
Check out Valheim’s Discord server, where they post frequent updates about patches and additional content.
